Free Eden's Gate by David Hagberg Page B

masquerading as a South African intelligence officer that time, too.”
    â€œWhat about his fingerprints?”
    â€œAlready done, Frances. Whatever databases the Russians turn to, including their own in Moscow, they’ll either come up with nothing, or they’ll run into a blank wall in Johannesburg.”
    â€œWhich is all they would find if he had really worked for South African Intelligence.”
    Hughes smiled, his eyes twinkling. “They do tend to protect their own.”
    â€œWhat about the business with the diamonds?” Frances asked.
    â€œI’ll make a couple of telephone calls in the morning, but I know just enough about genetics to know that I don’t know. In the meantime you can get started on Reichsamt Seventeen. There should be some sort of a record somewhere, one would think.”
    â€œI’ll check with the BKA in Berlin.”
    Hughes looked up at her. “Actually why don’t you go home and get a few hours’ sleep, my dear? We can call the Germans later this morning.”
    â€œWhat, and leave you here all alone?” Frances said. She shook her head. “Not a chance, you nasty man. Moira asked me to keep an eye on you at all times.”
    â€œWhy might that be?” he asked in mock indignation.
    â€œBecause she knows that if you’re left to your own devices for too long, you’ll start smoking again.”
    â€œGads!”
    Â 
    Gloria Speyer lay in bed staring up at the ceiling as her husband paced back and forth. She’d never seen him this agitated.
    â€œThe Russians have taken the hook,” he said.
    â€œHow did Browne do tonight?” Gloria asked.
    â€œHe did all right,” Speyer said.
    Gloria looked at her husband; he was staring at her. “You still don’t trust him, do you,” she said.
    â€œI don’t trust anybody.”
    â€œAm I included?”

    â€œYou especially.”
    She laughed, and she could feel a warm glow in her belly. “Then you most definitely have a problem, my darling. You want him to work for you, and you want me to watch him.” She laughed again. “Maybe I’ll fuck him. Is that too high a price for you to pay?”
    â€œOn the contrary, sweetheart, that’s exactly the price I want to pay, because it’ll give me something to use against both of you. It’s all about control, you know.”
    She plucked the ashtray off the nightstand and threw it at him. But he just stepped aside and laughed at her.
    Â 
    As the sun came up, Lukashin stood at the window of his office looking out toward the wooded grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory, his thoughts lost in the new start the German had offered him on a sliver platter. He was drinking a cup of coffee, another habit besides going deeply in debt that he had picked up in the States. For the first time in as long as he could remember he could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
    Mironov knocked once and came in. “He’s South African. Name of John Browne.”
    Lukashin turned away from the window. “I was never in South Africa. How could we have met?”
    â€œYou were both in Rio de Janeiro for the war games four years ago,” Mironov said. He laid the thin file folder on Lukashin’s desk. “He worked for South African Intelligence until two years ago when they fired him. He was down there working with some arms dealers, but now they have a warrant for his arrest, though they’re not pushing it with much vigor.”
    â€œWhat’d he do?”
    â€œI couldn’t find out,” Mironov said. “Leastways not about that. But he has no love for us.” Mironov explained what he’d come up with from Browne’s record. “I checked with Moscow but there was no record of any such operation against him or his family.”
    â€œThings like that tend to get lost,” Lukashin said. “Is he a threat?”
    Mironov thought about the question